


The Light Within

by AvengersCompound (emilyevanston)



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Gen, Homelessness, Kidnapping, Mutant Powers, Mutant Reader, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 03:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyevanston/pseuds/AvengersCompound
Summary: You have been living on the street since your Mutant Powers manifested.  One day you notice other homeless people going missing.  That’s when your life changed forever





	The Light Within

The first snows had hit the city early this year.  There had been a blizzard in November like you hadn’t seen in years.  It had lifted but it had been snowing on and off ever since.  The first one that had properly settled had been a week ago, and it had snowed on and off every day since.

There was a blanket of white over the park that they plowed off the roads and paths every morning before it opened and then throughout the day as needed.  At night they tried to clear everyone out when they locked up.  It was a big space though and hard to check everywhere.  There were always people that escaped the sweep.  You always escaped the sweep.  It was easy to do when you could blend in the way you did.

Your mutant powers had manifested when you were 12 and puberty hit.  It wasn’t an unusual story.  Nor was the aftermath when your parents had kicked you out of their house.  While your powers let you blend into nature well, they stood out in the city.  You had a light inside you and it spread out to find the closest plant life.  When they surrounded you, you could keep it in, use it to camouflage into trees.  When it was all concrete and glass it made you glow as it searched for something to attach to.

You had been homeless ever since.

It hadn’t been easy in the middle of Manhattan as a 12-year-old with an affinity with nature.  You had found a home in the park and while there were days when you didn’t eat, you were able to keep safe and warm thanks to your powers.  As you got older you’d started stealing.  Now as an adult, you had a nice set up in the park.  Other homeless would come to you for help and you gladly gave it.  When it got cold like this, you could manipulate the plants to make a shelter and you gave off heat that you pulled in from the core of the planet.

Then people had started going missing.  It had taken a little while to notice.  Homeless people came and went regularly anyway.  Especially when it got cold like this.  The cold claimed a lot of lives.  For most people in the city, the holidays were something they looked forward to.  For the homeless, it was a thing to survive.

You had started to suspect something was up by the end of November.  There were so few people in the park at night anymore and the ones that were, came to you not just for warmth but out of fear.

By mid-December, you had seen them.  They had come in vans, letting themselves into the park after it was locked up with a device that definitely wasn’t just a key.  They had then hunted for people.  Catching them and forcing them into the van.  Your powers let you hide.  It didn’t let you hide other people.

You felt helpless and you hated it.  You hadn’t felt like that in a long time.  Not since you were a child.  You had stolen a sword from a tourist vendor and now, on Christmas Eve you hunted the people who had been hunting in your home.

They came in the same gate as they always did and you used the shrubbery that ran along the side of the road as cover as you tracked their van inside.  You had no other plan than to kill them.  Slowly if possible.  You wanted to make them suffer the way all the people you had known since being thrown out suffered each day.

They stopped when they saw a small group gathered under a shelter with a fire. As they got out of their van you ran at them.  You hadn’t even gotten a few steps when someone rushed out and grabbed you and dragged you behind some trees.

You went to scream and his hand covered your mouth.  “Shh… do you want them to find us?”  He hissed at you.

You turned to look at him and were met by a smile and twinkling blue eyes.  He had a dark burgundy coat on and a bow and arrows strapped to his back.  He was familiar but in your strung out state, you couldn’t make the connection.  “Let me go.  I need to stop them.”

“If you kill them now, we won’t be able to find where they’re taking those people.”  He whispered.  “So chill.  We’re tracking them okay?”

You stopped struggling and turned back as the sounds of the people getting dragged into the van caught your attention.  A rage boiled up inside you and you could feel a tug from the plants around you as they wanted to help.

“What were you planning to do?  Hit them with this toy sword?”  The archer asked.

“It’s not a toy.”  You hissed.

He responded by snapping the flimsy metal blade over his knee.  “Not exactly a real sword either.”

The van started up and you went to lunge after it.  “Let me go.  They’re getting away.”

He held you tight and you struggled against him.  “Jeez, trust me okay.  They’re not getting away.”

He let his arms relax around your waist and took your hand in his.  “Alright come on.”  He said and dragged you along after him.  “You got eyes on them, Tones?”

You assumed he must have been speaking into some kind of walkie-talkie you couldn’t see so you just kept quiet and followed along with him.   You reached the stone wall that bordered the park and he looked up at it.  “Shit…”  He looked back at you.  “You wanna climb on my back?  I’ll be able to carry you over.”

“Don’t sweat it.”  You said and began to glow.  The tree beside you lowered a branch and you stepped onto it.  It lifted you up and over the wall as the archer first stood dumbfounded and then in several leaps cleared the wall himself.

“Nice trick,”  he said.  “Mutant?”

“So they tell me,”  You replied, following after him.

He led you to where two people were waiting and you immediately recognized the taller man as Captain America.  It would have been hard to miss really.  The blond hair, muscles, and huge flag costume were kind of a giveaway.  You turned to the man with you.  “You’re Hawkeye.”

He laughed.  “Took you long enough.  Call me Clint.”

“Who’s this?”  Steve asked when you drew near.  You gave him your name and Clint quickly went over what had just happened.

“If you have seen what’s been going on and have powers that could be useful.  You mind joining us?”  Steve asked.

“Try and stop me.”  You said.  That made the redhead woman with him you assumed was Black Widow laugh.

The three of them all mounted bikes and Clint tossed you a helmet.  You put it on and climbed on the back of his motorcycle.  He took off following the others as they weaved in and out of the streets.  The further you got from Central Park the brighter you glowed as you powers seemed to search for more plant life.  Occasionally you were aware of Clint saying something but you couldn’t hear him through your helmet over the roar of the engine so you just held tight and looked around, hoping you’d see the vans.  When Iron Man came into view overhead you were glowing a dim blue in the dark street.

The three of them pulled up at what appeared to be an abandoned building downtown.  Iron Man landed next to you and his visor slid back.  “What’s with the human night light?”

Clint turned and looked at you.  “Woah. What the hell?  You weren’t doing that before.”

“It happens when I get too far from a mass of trees.”  You explain.  “I can’t stop it either.”

“Right, well,”  Tony said.  “They went down there.”  He pointed to a wall.

“Down where?”  Steve asked approaching it.

“It opened up, they went underground.  There’s a whole nest of them down there.”

Steve ran his hands over it and along the cracks.  “Can’t risk blowing it open.  Too crowded.”

“Allow me,”  You said and held your hands out.  Plants from nearby spread their roots and expanded, cracking the sidewalk, when they reached the wall they pushed up and forced it open.

“Holy shit,”  Tony said looking from the damage to you and then back again.  He pointed at you and the visor closed.  “Get her on the team.”

He took off flying before anyone could answer and Clint grinned at you.  “Looks like you’re an Avenger.”

“We’ll see,”  You said and followed after Iron Man.

Clint and the other’s followed in after you, Steve quickly overtaking you and disappearing into the black void ahead of you.

“It’s cool how you’re basically a torch right now,”  Clint said as he followed beside you.

“Thanks.  I guess.”  You said.

“Kinda need my eyes.”  He added.  “Hard to shoot things if you can’t see them.”

“You’re kinda weird you know?”

“Says the glowing wood nymph.”  He shot back.

An alarm started sounding, echoing down the halls, and red lights came to life down the walls, easily absorbed by the bright white you were now giving off.  You came out into an open room where Steve and Tony were already in mid-combat.  Natasha ran headlong into the fray while Clint began nocking arrows and releasing them into the group.

“If there’s something you can do right now to help.  Just do it.”  Clint called.

You glanced around the room.  There were people in tiny cells around the far wall and medical equipment.  One man you recognized as a regular to seek you out was strapped to a table and looked terrified.  His name was Frank.

They had to pay.

You crouched down and put your hands on the ground.  Everything was cold steel and concrete on all sides.  You glowed brighter as you searched, reaching out with your powers, trying to grasp on some kind of plant life.  You were aware that Clint had moved closer to you though why or what he was doing you didn’t know.

You powers tapped on fungus deep under the facility.  You tugged at it, coaxed it.  For a moment you weren’t sure it was listening.  A fungus isn’t a plant after all.  It’s its own thing.  You were about to move on when there was a loud rumble and the earth began to shake.

Tiles began falling from the ceiling and concrete slabs tore up under people’s feet as the fungus forced its way above ground.  It cracked open the cell doors and began to engulf the people who had been stealing the homeless, trapping them in its spongy form.

Your skin dulled as it filled the room and soon Clint was shaking you.  “You can stop.  You did it.”  He said.

You opened your eyes to see Clint grinning down at you.  Steve, Tony, and Natasha were staring at your dumbfounded.  “Holy shit,”  Tony said.  “Legolas, recruit her.”

Clint quirked his eyebrow at you.  “So what do you say, kid?  Wanna be an Avenger?”

You looked around at all the people in the room.  “What about all these people?  What will happen to them?”

“The bad guys will go to jail.  The others we’ll make sure they get medical care, somewhere to stay.  You don’t have to worry.”

“I need to be where there are trees.”  You said.

Clint’s smile broadened.   “Well, I’m sure you’ll like the 200 acres of forest the compound sits in.”

You thought about what it would mean to be an Avenger.  Having an actual home.  People who accepted you and considered you one of them.  Plus Clint seemed cute.  He was weird but maybe you could get a coffee sometime.  You’d never actually had coffee before.

“Okay.  I’ll be an Avenger.”

Clint offered you his hand and you took it, letting him pull you to his feet.  “Let’s go home then.”


End file.
